Another Earth (2011)

November 24, 2013

2 min read

Returning from Los Angeles to Chennai by Cathay Pacific via Hong Kong, I spend my time in the long flight of 14 hours by watching few movies. The first one was Another Earth (2011). When I pressed play in the Onflight entertainment device, I was expecting a sci-fi movie, but it turned out to be a Drama, nevertheless it was okay to watch.

Another Earth is directed by Mike Cahill, starring Brit Marling who has shouldered the heavy character well which involves being a young reckless girl, a juvenile prisoner & a guilt ridden women. The movie is about how a bright young MIT girl (Rhoda) of 17 years age being drunk causes a road accident and kills a young mother and her boy. Rhoda serves prison term, on release she is occupied by her guilt and takes to being a Janitor in a local school. While all this drama is unfolding in the background is the discovery of Another Earth like planet. Like Moon in our skyline, the new planet could be seen with naked eye in our sky. Soon scientist speculate that people in the other Earth may be same to those of us here, kind of like Lewis Carroll’s Through the Looking-Glass (the sequel to Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland). Rhoda meanwhile finds her Victim’s husband (John) and develops a relationship that becomes romantic, I felt this was a movie cliché and it could have been avoided.

The movie ends with how Rhoda handles her guilt and does she reconcile with the victim’s husband. In the last scene, we see Rhoda encountering her twin from Earth 2 and we are left to interpret it ourselves. Wikipedia page for the film has listed the possible interpretations confirming my guesses.